Bad Seed

Jagaimo’s eyes opened slowly when she felt the newer power entering the great training hall. Even amongst all those gathered here this child was strong, stronger than many might ever get, but there was a look on her face, one that gave her an air of entitlement as she walked past the circles where other ‘Elites’ and Royal Guard trained, mixing with all walks of life from the Saiyan academies and the army. Jagaimo herself recognised a few she had trained with years ago, all of them stronger than her in the past but now barely a challenge. She wasn’t arrogant, she’d never been an arrogant person she just saw the facts as they were, her power had continued to grow over the years surprising even her and where once most of the Saiyan’s gathered here would have beaten her with ease, now their fortunes had reversed and she wouldn’t likely break a sweat against most of them.

This Daika looked almost exactly how she was expecting her to…not her physical appearance…but the way she moved, how she had that air of ‘i’m better than you’ about her, even the way she dressed. Very few wore armour to the training hall, there was little point…those who did usually wanted to be noticed. Just like this little thing. That suit was pristine in every way, despite quite likely being older than the girl was. Had it ever seen a day of combat in its life? She shook her head slowly in a small motion and flexed her toes in the sand, rising up onto the balls of her feet and slowly back down again testing her balance. It felt off, but her injuries had been fairly substantial so that was unstandable given how fast she was returning to training.

The look of entitlement on the young girl's face changed to a look of disappointment and then contempt as the Daika looked her over. It never ceased to amaze Jagaimo that those in power or those with even a touch of power felt as though it afforded them some kind of pedestal to stand on to laud over their fellow Saiyan’s. They were going to be in for a shock for sure as the effects of Zuqetta’s first official proclamation came into effect and began to ripple through the Kingdom. No more distinction…advance on your merits not the power you were born with. It had a nice ring to it.

Jagaimo shrugged in response to the girls words, her good shoulder rising higher than the one that held the strapped up arm,

“It's not going to be much of a lesson if you're teaching now is it? Now shut up and pay attention.”

The older Saiyan reached into a bag beside her feet, wincing a little at the movement, feeling muscles and ribs protest until she straightened out again, a light padded vest in her one good hand. Her face was indifferent to the looks Daika gave her, she’d been witness to them her entire life and now they no longer bothered her…the Elites had no place anymore if they couldn’t pull their own weight. A look from a little girl wasn’t going to cause her to lose any sleep.

“First lesson, take that thing off, you look ridiculous. Warriors and soldiers wear armour, you are neither. When you earn it you can put it back on.”

She nodded to the girls outfit and then tossed the vest across the sand filled circle to her feet. It was one of the ones she’d brought from the Tuffle’s a while back now.

“Second lesson. Put that on and hit the blue button in the side panel.”

She motioned to the bottom right of her rib cage to indicate where the switch was she was talking about. The vest was one of the weighted vests she’d invested a lot of zeni into to improve her own abilities and those who worked with her at the Brawl Hole. The hi tech weave was a marvel of Tuffle science, able to simulate all manner of gravitational effects on the wearer…effectively stripping them of their power as more and more of it was needed to fight against the gravity well running through the fabric. Truly incredible. Stupidly expensive. This one was set to strip the wearer down to just a tenth of their power…she just hadn’t told the girl…

Jagaimo waited patiently, never taking her eyes of the kid,

“Let me know when you're ready…”

It was becoming clear that the child across the red sandy circle opposite her had never really experienced any kind of training that didn't put her out of her safe little comfort zone. Weighted training was nothing new to most Saiyan soldiers, the vests she';d purchased had simply brought the whole concept into the present day. Gone were the massive awkward weights, replaced by the Tuffle tech that did all the same kind of work, took up far less room and could be adjusted on the fly...if you knew how the controls worked. It had been one of her favorite purchases once she'd seen them the first time. And she rarely trained alone without one...she'd even attempted to use one in a match recently in the Brawl Hole to keep things fair. When Daika activated the vest's gravity function without knowing what was going to happen Jagaimo couldn't help but let out a chuckle that carried across the small ring. She stepped forwards, toes sliding into the cool sand as the other Saiyan forced herself back to her shakey feet. She'd adapt pretty quickly to the loss in strength, compensating as her body was for the increase in localized gravity, most people did, it just took a few moments for them to realize that they could still move...just as effectively as they always had, slower for sure due to the restrictions but it wasn't crippling if a warrior put their mind to it. It was certainly better than the equipment she'd used growing up in the academy barracks.

"What did I do to you? I did nothing at all, you did this to yourself."

The older woman moved slowly around the sand, her braced arm tucked into her stomach, held in place with bandages that ran over her shoulder and across her ribs themselves while her other arm lifted, hand running through her unruly hair and brushing it from her face. She ignored the way the Saiyan girl tried to gnaw her way through the straps. If she just stopped and took a moment to think she'd realize she wasn't trapped at all, a simple press would free her instantly.

"The vest contains some kind of fancy Tuffle tech. What your experiencing is a localized gravity field that has tuned itself into your body and your Ki. You'll get used to it, but you'll bare be able to call a fraction of whatever power you usually go throwing around for no good reason."

Jagaimo wasn't even looking at the girl anymore, her eyes were drifting around the training hall, a few faces looking back, a few nodding in her direction while others still whispered under their breath, out of earshot. After a few moments she brought her gaze back to the child, looking at the way her anger seethed in those eyes, arrogance mixed with confidence, a look that spoke of still looking down on someone who didn't meet their expectation of a warrior. She shrugged at Daika's words. At least it was a half shrug for the most part.

"I'm not here to joke with some jumped up brat that doesn't know the first thing about battle but please, you are welcome to destroy me if you like, however before you unleash your fury on me I have a few more words of advice..."

Jagaimo stepped forward slowly through the sand, eyes fixed on the girl as she struggled to rise, her own power vanishing from every scouter and every sense that tried to find her, completely masked without having to suppress her power any further. A few of those fighters nearby shuddered without knowing why and some of those who had moved to spectate the strange pairing took an involuntary step back as something deep inside them threatened to trigger their fight or flight response. Jagaimo had no idea if Daika would even notice the strange effect that had begun to follow her, but if she didn't test it she'd neer know...

The older warrior stopped a few paces from where Lady Daika was trying to get back to her feet, her face a blank emotionless wall.

"Now are you ready for your third lesson?"

Jagaimo cocked her head to one side as she studied the girl, waiting for her to pull herself together and rise to her feet. As soon as there was any indication that Daika was ready to go Jagaimo moved. Lunging forwards in a front kick to the smaller female's chest, with almost four times the power the vest allowed the younger Saiyan to call upon, intending to launch her clear across the training hall and into the back wall...

"Theres always someone stronger out there. You'd do well to remember that."

Jagaimo watched the girl tumble through the air as she slowly brought her bare foot back down into the sand. She didn't scream, she didn't shout. There was no need to. The kick had done pretty much what she expected it to do, most of which was to catch the girl by surprise. Daika seemed like the kind of Saiyan that was used to getting things way and having everything on their terms. The older Saiyan had learned the hard way that things rarely went the way you wanted them to and every plan needed to be adaptable. Maybe she'd kicked her a little too hard but proving a point wasn't always painless. The cratering impact on the wall at the far end of the training hall, echoed off the stone and brought many faces looking up from their own sparring to see what was going on. A good number of them knew Jagaimo by appearance as she'd begun training with many of them more and more, mostly with the Royal Guard but often inviting any and all to train with her. The child however was a new face to a lot of the onlookers, a few raising eyebrows as a flash of recognition appeared across their faces.

For a moment there didn't seem to be any movement.

Don't you dare stay down.

Her thoughts were mirrored by the tumbling of rubble and stone to the ground as the small Saiyan pulled herself out of the hole she'd made in the wall.

There it is.

She'd seen that look before, she knew that look herself as it had often stared back at her from the abyss inside. It had taken a beating from Vocado to help her find the strength to control it back in the arena behind the throne room and it had helped her understand herself far more than the beast had ever allowed her to. She saw that rage in Daika now, eyes burning with angry vengeance and the promise of violence to come. Jagaimo herself just stood in the sand circle, uninjured arm hanging by her side, her face still devoid of anything other than an appraising look in her eye. She was studying the girl, feeling her power, something blocking whatever it was she had just tried to channel and it was curious. The tail was fascinating. Why with access to the Tuffle technology and the medical knowledge of the Empire often for sale had the parents not just had it healed and the damage repaired? It was a curious thing but a question maybe for another time.

While the girl approached many now stopped their training to watch, interested to see what this angry little child was planning to try...

"You seem angry Daika, you understand that's not going to help you don't you?"

Jagaimo had no intention of teasing the girl, but after that first encounter she knew she needed to try and show her that just letting go didn't always solve your problems. The older Saiyan, tucked her good hand into the waistband of her Namekian pants and let her tail tighten slowly round it as the girl spoke out,

"If you manage to break my other arm Lady Daika, I'll take you to Zuqetta myself and she can give you your armour back. If I don't leave here with another broken arm then your armour is mine until you can take it off me. Good? That seems fair."

Jagaimo almost shook her head at the way the girl took up her stance, muscles tensing up. Almost. She wasn't here to pity the girl, she would have to war with her emotions and find a balance herself, all Jagaimo could do was try and help her along. The best warriors she'd ever seen fought with their heads, not just with their hearts and the strength of their fist. Daika needed to learn this if she was ever going to get any stronger, if she was going to survive the way the universe was going.

When the kick came it was swift and strong...and predictable. She'd gone for the damage ribs, its what most people would have done in her place to so she couldn't hold that against her. Go for a weakness your opponent exhibits and exploit it. Made sense. Except when your opponent could move almost 4 times faster than you. Jagaimo stepped forward as the kick came, sliding her feet through the sand and shuffling forwards, a knee rising up rapidly to impact the inner thigh of Daika's kicking leg, stealing much the venom from the attack. The force of it against her block still slide the older woman back a few feet but had robbed the smaller girl of her opening attack.

"Remember lesson number three?"

Jagaimo cocked her head to the side and then shifted her hips, whipping her own foot around in a turning kick motion, copying Daika's previous action and aiming for the girls ribs. At the last moment however she pulled her foot back, letting her knee slide past the girls body and shifted in the sand again balancing on one foot, reversing her motion and arcing her foot up, bringing it down in thundering axe kick for the side of the girls neck and shoulder.

Jagaimo felt the impact of her bare heel striking the flesh of the young Saiyan's neck and shoulder, thudding and slapping into her, the downward force driving the angry child down to one knee in the sand, her fingers splayed out through the red grains in an effort to keep herself from face planting in the dirt. To her credit she remained on one knee, Jagaimo's grinding into the muscle of neck for a moment longer before she pulled back to steady herself, feeling the young girls grip tighten like a vice around her leading ankle. The older woman's head cocked to the side a little, studying the girl as she knelt there, a quiver in her voice even as she tried to hide the tears of pain that ran down her cheeks. The girls bravado was a show and Jagaimo could see through it as clearly as if it were her own. She knew what it was like to pretend to be something you weren't to try and impress others because that was how you were expected to behave. It was a way of life that was slowly destroying the Saiyan people and it had to stop. It was going to stop, Zuqetta would see to that. But change took time and this new generation would be the ones defending them. They needed to find a strength they didn't know they had.

When the voice changed Jagaimo cocked an eyebrow, confused for a moment at why the child would do something so...pointless? Maybe it was something that worked on the servants in the upper house holds...down here in the sand it does little but make someone question if that person understands themselves, or if they needed a mask to hide behind.

"Why do I have to impress you though, Lady Daika?"

She made sure she punctuated the title of her little charges name, hoping to get across that titles meant little when two people were facing off so close together. Nothing mattered in that moment except the fighters themselves, not names, not titles, not airs nor graces. The polite soldier was going to kill you dead as sure as the rude one was.

She shifted in the sand, pulling back a little with the grabbed ankle, foot braced in the sand after a quick yank to try and topple the girl forwards just a little, to unbalance her before her back leg swept forwards and she dropped to one knee, driving the point of it straight into the outstretched forearm of the smaller Saiyan that tried so hard to grip on tight, pinning it into the sand and grinding the point against muscle and bone, using her weight and a little amount of her power to push down.

"One day maybe you might be the strongest Saiyan that ever lived, but right now you're a little girl who is lying to herself. How do you ever expect to win a real fight if you can't be honest with yourself about your abilities. To test your limits you need to know where they are first...And your ancestors don't care shrak about you girl, they're all dead and you will be as well if you go into battle with your current attitude."

Jagaimo's tail unfurled from around her waist, while her good hand stayed tucked inside the waistband of her off world styled pants. It flicked a few times and then snaked out, sliding round the girl's neck and squeezing, wrapping once...then twice, holding as tightly as another limb. Her eyes locked with the girls as best they could in her twisted position, trying to keep her pinned in place with one knee while her tail slowly choked the girl, mimicking her one knee down stance...although she didn't use her hands to steady herself.

"You can feel it can't you? I can see it in your eyes, in your face...it burns in your blood just like every Saiyan in this room, the desire to be the strongest, to test yourself and meet every challenge head on without fear…I can feel it so clearly now inside me…”

Jagaimo held the young girl with a stare, eyes flaring red, ablaze with violence before she closed them and sighed, rolling her shoulder and hissing with a sharp intake of breath when she tried to roll the injured arm all together. It was going to take a while to get back into full shape…probably longer than she hoped.

“That beast is part of you, but it doesn’t control you, it should never control you. The strength of our Oozaru passenger is a boon to us in battle only if we hold the reins. If you let it go you’ll die alone and forgotten on some old nameless planet because someone pushed your buttons a little too much.”

Jagaimo began to press down harder with her knee, feeling the bone of the girls arm resisting her, tail pulling tight on the girls throat and tilting Daika's head a little higher so they could look into each others eyes properly.

“If you keep fighting me with brute force alone, like our ancestors did, I'm going to break this arm and then when you get up and make the same mistake again I'll break the other one. Then I'll walk away because you're wasting my time and everyone will know just how to beat you from watching this little outburst of yours.”

The pressure increased as Jagaimo called on more of her power rather than just the strength of her muscles to keep than arm pinned in the sand as best she could,

“Or you get it through your thick skull that some people might be worth listening to, even if they don’t seem that impressive to you. Now do i let you up and we try again or do I break this arm first?”

Something shifted in the young girl at the mention of the Oozaru form.

Jagaimo watched the change in the girl's eyes, the blooming desire for violence visible as it flowered somewhere deep in those orbs, even as her emaciated tail tried to twist round the older Saiyan's ankle with little effect. Her power flared around them both as Jagaimo shifted her knee on the girl's swelling arm, feeling the muscles of her body bunching, the taller fighter's tail loosening from the smaller girl's neck as it bulged and strained against her.

"Don't do it, don't give in."

Jagaimo's words were already too late when they came out of her mouth that much was clear. Daika had already committed to her action, something had triggered her, something about the Oozaru form and her tail, her Blutz organ. Whatever it was the injured woman didn't really have the time in this moment to try and unpack the information that she had been given right now. Jagaimo could feel the girl's entire body swell as it condensed all that power into a miniature form, the Tuffle manufactured vest adjusting rapidly as it had been designed to do against the swift transformation that took place beneath its fabric.

No...Daika, don't do it...

There was nothing Jagaimo could do in that instant except watch as the girl heaved with all her strength against the knee that had pinned her forearm to the sandy floor. The bone snapped as neither combatant was willing to give ground, the force pushing Jagaimo back up to her feet and forcing her to slide back a few feet from the young fighter, feeling a bold of pain slice through her own tail when it pulled back to her body to wrap around her waist again like a limb retreating from pain. It took a moment to realize Daika had actually bitten her! The girl had sunk her teeth into Jagaimo's tail as she transformed...the nerve to do such a thing! Any longer and she might have even bitten through it, so the older woman counted her lucky stars she reacted as she did. But she couldn't hide the look of disappointment in her eyes even as her face returned to its stoney exterior. There was no real place for emotion but she had hoped this young one would have been stronger than she had been at that age.

The sand below the transformed child blew as if a desert wind were racing across its surface in every direction from the center as she stood there seething, that fractured arm flopping limply at the extra joint that had appeared in the middle of the forearm. It wasn't the worst break Jagaimo had ever seen but it looked painful, she'd felt the break and knew from experience the pain that must be shooting through the limb at every jostle or jolt, but the look in the girls eyes, the absence of any kind of conscious thought, told the older warrior all she needed to know. Daika wasn't about to listen to reason...she needed to burn off some of that rage before any words might have a chance to reach her...it's what Vocado had done to her, maybe she could get through the same way somehow. She didn't have his way with words but she'd been through this process herself and had come out stronger because of it. It's likely Daika could too with the right direction and guidance.

But something needed to be done here first. The vest held but the girl could still hurt herself...or anyone else here...even with the dampener in place she was still a powerful figure...despite just being a child.

"Com’on then girl, you're angry, I get that...you wanna do something about it then com’on, what are you waiting for?"

Jagaimo shifted her stance, feet sliding through the cool red sand, eyes never leaving the young girl. The power balance had tipped away from her for now but she could always take it back. Right now Daika needed to work out some of her anger issues before Jagaimo could try and get through to her again. She slipped her hand free of her waistband and lowered it into a guarded stance. She knew how this went...the target of your rage in this form was usually the last person that attacked you, it had been like that for years on the front lines...it's why the form was so effective when you had an enemy to face ahead of you. But Daika hadn't changed fully, she could see the hints of it here and there much like her own Wrathful form, she had the power she needed...but she didn't have the control.

They would need to work on that.

The noise coming from the young Saiyan was enough to make some of those spectating take a step back away from the ring they had started to crowd around to watch the match unfold. Whatever unspoken rules had been put in place to protect the fighters and soldiers that trained here appeared to have gone out the door once Daika gave in and unleashed her inner Wrathful form...an Oozaru's power contained in a hulked out shell of a Saiyan. Some underwent training to control these transformations, to keep themselves coherent when they morphed...while others...many like Jagaimo herself, were just left to run rampant across the countryside of their enemies once the change was forced on them. A tactic she despised but an effective one. You couldn't reason with someone who had no sense of reason to begin with. It made for very effective shock troops, especially when no one tended to suspect children on the battlefield.

But Daika hadn't been a soldier, she'd had trainers and tutors...something else had stopped her from changing to her Oozaru form entirely, trapped as she was now in a Wrathful state...and the damage to her tail gave Jagaimo a reason as to why. With medicine as it was, especially in the Empire and even Hatchi, this shouldn't have been something the girl should have had to grow up with...but it had never been healed. And now all her time training and tutoring was showing just what she'd been taught...so far it seemed like very little.

When her boots exploded around her expanding feet and the full extent of her change overtook Daika, Jagaimo shifted her own stance, sliding her good arm from its place tucked into her waistband and bringing it to a more defensive position. The rules had changed. Daika had changed them so Jagaimo was adapting. At this point it would have been foolish to not defend herself properly against the angry child. The burning Ki the girl released was intense, and thankfully contained by the Tuffle designed vest, limiting her power to a fraction of what it should be, and thankfully so. They didn't need some crazed temper tantrum taking out a whole unit of Saiyan soldiers just here to train.

But Daika needed to blow off steam apparently and Jagaimo understood that all to well.

A frontal assault she'd expected, its what she would have done back when she couldn't control herself so well but regardless the speed of the girl was still impressive even though she'd been handicapped. There wasn't time to mess with her own vest, the dials took some time to adjust correctly, not in the split second it took her small opponent to cross the sand pit and plant that explosive punch right into her jaw. She braced herself and then at the last moment threw herself backwards with the impact, creating space between them and lessening the blow enough to turn into into something glancing rather than bone shaking. The explosive impact skidded her backwards out of the sand ring where she managed to keep her footing, avoiding the follow up attack that would likely have winded her on its way through. If Daika had been thinking clearly she would have capitalised...as it was she just seemed to stand there glaring at the older Saiyan and seething out of reach in the sand.

Jagaimo's good hand rubbed her jaw, rolling her knuckles across it and shifting it a little from side to side. Still hurt like hell to be punched in the face even if she'd softened the blow some what. Reaching out with her senses she pinned Daika in her mind and followed every movement she made even as she turned her back on the young Saiyan, smiling at some of the gathered crowd, as her hand hurried slide under the vest straps and shifted a few dials quickly,

"The Elite Lady Daika everyone! In all her battle hardened glory! Isn't she glorious?"